O-rings are the standard seal technology in waterproof watches, and also in scuba diving equipment where lives literally depend on them. They are actually extraordinarily reliable.
But at the same time, a diver is trained to look for leaks as part of their pre-divw checklist, and oring replacements are fairly common. On my last liveaboard, the crew replaced probably good 1-2 dozen tank orings over the course of a week. One of my LP hose orings had frayed as well and needed to be replaced.
It might be the standard, but it's not exactly the best experience either.
The o-rings that require regular attention are the ones that handle high-pressure air. Run-of-the-mill waterproofing o-rings, like the ones used to seal dive watches and dive computers, are fire-and-forget. And yes, dive watches and dive computer have beefier housings than iPhones, but iPhones don't need to be waterproof to 150m.
Dive computers with replaceable batteries 100% have user-serviceable o-rings that need lubing and eventual replacement. My Shearwater came with both grease and 2 replacement o-rings.
HP hoses and o-rings also can and do fail, and, once again, divers are trained to look for signs like the rubber bubbling. There is also not really a difference between the o-rings used in HP and LP hoses and equipment outside the size, and I gave examples of LP hoses failing.
These all require regular maintenance and replacement, and, once again, divers are trained and should be checking their equipment regularly.
But that's all beside the point, which is that your claim is that "[o-rings] are extraordinarily reliable". Except they are not, they require replacing all the time. They may be industry standard, but they are fall from infallible.
Scuba equipment is most often used in saltwater and is subjected to increased pressure while underwater. The conditions scuba equipment is subjected to vs what waterproof cell phones are rated for are very different.
Chlorine isn't friendly to o-rings, but I'm not sure where someone would put their phone while in a pool anyways. Mine comes in the tub with me for soaks for sure though.
Do o-rings have a dramatically high failure rate that I don't know about? It can dry rot or otherwise break down, but as a seal on the back of a phone, I've found them 100% reliable.
I don’t see how we can transition off of fossil fuels without them becoming prohibitively expensive. Unaffordable gas is exactly what our politicians have chosen when declaring all new cars in 2030 will be electric. It is by design. Sort of silly that there’s now this pearl clutching about expensive gas. Even more absurd to see the left attack Elon who is the person doing the most to make their policies actually work. Imagine California getting rid of gas burning vehicles without Tesla. Ridiculous. And if that weren’t bad enough, with 8% and rising inflation California’s genius leader wants to send everyone (presumably even jailed convicts) gift cards to buy more gas! Can’t make this stuff up.
> Even more absurd to see the left attack Elon who is the person doing the most to make their policies actually work.
A person can do good, and also do bad. Reward the good, punish the bad. You're exhibiting black-and-white thinking here and treating "the left" as a monolith. One could just as accurately claim that Elon is attacking "the left" despite "the left" being responsible for the policies that have massively helped Tesla get off the ground.
I mean, if they really wanted to make gas unaffordable, they could have raised gas taxes to European levels. I think most people know we are in a Catch-22: the majority of Americans are totally dependent upon affordable gasoline to go about their daily lives. You don't want these people to suffer, which is what happens when prices are high, but you also don't want them to become even more dependent upon low gas prices, which is what happens every time that gas prices collapse.
We should be celebrating that we can now see a way out of this endless trap, and embracing EVs across the political spectrum.
Ev are only part of a solution. The energy must come from somewhere and it’s not going to be wind/solar unless something miraculous happens in renewable energy. Europe like California is ditching nuclear while paying lip service to climate change. They are either dishonest or falling into magical thinking.
Honestly, the miracle in wind and solar has already happened, or is happening right now, depending upon your perspective. There are literally hundreds of utility-scale wind and solar projects up for approval in the US right now, including solar in places well outside the sun belt. And rooftop solar is still rare in most places, largely because the utilities have successfully lobbied against net metering. I still think we'll need nuclear for at least another generation, but I see fossil fuels getting largely priced out of the generation market before this decade is out.
So screw poor people eh? Until you can buy a beater EV for $2000 you can’t make gasoline price prohibitive unless you really want a Revolution.
Even in Europe where public transport is arguably better in most places than in the US car ownership rates are still very high and a very large portion of the population is dependent on them.
Even if Tesla does bring the Model 3 to its $30K price range that would still make it price prohibitive to most of the population in the west.
Could having doctors refuse to run diagnostics also lead to anxiety? It has for me personally but I may not be the typical patient. Some people want zero information about medical issues. They just want to leave all of it to the doctors, no desire to research their condition or understand the details; just trust the doc. I am the sort of person if my mechanic tells me I need an expensive repair, I want to know why. Once I had a dr tell me that I was wrong to feel less anxiety after getting an abnormal brain scan, than I would have felt had I not had the scan at all. It was an absurd conversation and very clear to me that the dr was more invested in his opinion on the matter than he was in listening to my reasons why the scan was reassuring to me. It was an mri, so no radiation. But he insisted that my anxiety would be worse having had the scan than if I hadn’t. A bizarre moment. Anyway, maybe doctors sometimes get too stuck on their own opinions and don’t fully appreciate that there are more than one type of patient? Some people like to change their own oil, some do not. Doctors may also underrate the anxiety of having no clear diagnosis when life changing problems occur. One size fits all mentality is probably wrong.
Did you offer to pay for the MRI cash (roughly $5k I would bet)?
Because to me this sounds more like "your insurance won't pay for it because it is not an indicated study by ACR criteria."
I hear that spending hours on the phone trying to justify a test to an insurance company is no fun, and I bet the task is not made any easier if you don't actually believe that the study will help the patient.
For anyone looking at self pay for an MRI in the US, there's an organization that offers that and other imaging services for the uninsured at $325 or less. https://radiologyassist.com/MRI.html
HMO so yes, costs are a factor. But it was a small cost relative to repeated doctor visits, hospital costs, etc… MRI for massive HMO are not $5000 due to economies of scale. The dr in this case was angry because the MRI revealed brain tumors which needed to be monitored.
$5k would be the estimated outside-of-insurance cost to you, to avoid spending hours of the MD trying to justify the study with the insurance.
Meningiomas by chance?
Has the monitoring improved your health? I'm not sure whether I would be more or less troubled if I had symptoms with an unclear cause vs a possible cause but unclear management plan. I suppose this will be highly variable.
I really don’t think the USA can afford to let Ukraine fail. They are basically committed to destroying the Russian economy now, and having them lose the war in Ukraine is an important part in that.
If Russia is able to defeat Ukraine, end the war and stabilise the situation, they will be in a better position to convince countries to work around the sanctions they are facing, which would amount to an end-run around the dominanc e of the US dollar.
So this is accurate in my opinion, but you're essentially saying the quiet part out loud. You're saying the war has nothing to do with saving Ukraine, but rather protecting the hegemony of the US dollar.
I suspect if everybody understood that's what we're really concerned with, support for Ukraine would drop precipitously.
I was not suggesting the opposite, by any means. But I am not sure I agree with your statement either. I won’t even get into hunter Biden’s Ukrainian business dealings and I agree the blame is technically all on Putin, who is an evil madman, maybe even literally going insane from cancer or paranoia or something.
But flooding Ukraine with cash and weapons, with zero oversight or public debate should concern people. It all seems a bit poorly managed, something that most intelligent people now agree is the overarching theme of the current administration. Dropping buckets of cash aid and weapons — 20 billion here, 40 billion there — will probably do more than intended. It usually does. We love regime changing the world, spreading American style peace and democracy, typically with an unwarranted optimism about the outcome. Let’s hope things go better this time.
I love a lot of modern Art, but I do feel Picasso is both way overrated and simultaneously a bit under appreciated. I think this is true of most of the big names in modern art. “Meme art” if you will. Some of it is deserving, but most of it is going to lose value over the next century, by a lot, and that will be a good thing for Art and for artists.
Really wish there was an easy way to short sell art. Artists themselves are pretty good at judging this stuff, but the market can stay irrational a long time.
Stop watching so much tv! Piracy is one thing, but wasting your life watching all of those “must have shows” makes it sound like your brain has been co-opted by the content producers. Maybe put down the remote and pick up a book?
Libraries are free so no. And, the selection is wider and better given the historical economics of literature vs streaming (steaming?) content production.
Can you point me to any good quantitative research on astrology? Steelman style treatment, preferably. I haven’t actually looked into astrology with much seriousness. I worry that I might be like one of those people who dismiss economics because of envy or some other weird psychological mechanism. It sounds like you might have some information to share?
The people who have popularized meditation in the west, Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzburg, Joseph Goldstein, zinn, all come at it from the Buddhist tradition.
It’s a useful approach for treating various medical problems. Anything, even nothing, can cause psychosis.
This is minimising the risks, and those people you mention, while being from traditional backgrounds, afaik do not teach traditional practises, so they have effectively removed the wider framework
Meditation is not “as safe as sitting down”. It has strong life altering risks
For those dealing with chronic pain, insomnia and other debilitating conditions, these people offer a lot that cannot be achieved through other means. Opiates or benzodiazepines are more readily available, and preferred by mainstream medicine, but they too can alter one’s life. Anything can alter one’s life if you think about it.
Newsom is best friends with marathon’s biggest lobbyist. They were caught dining at the French laundry, in what should be seen as a case of illegal lobbying. This immediately after imposing a statewide lockdown. Nobody cared.
In California, climate and the environment is a giant non-issue because the voter will vote the same, no matter what. Therefore everything boils down to behind the scenes horse-trading amongst the various lobbies. There is no viable Green Party in the state. Why?
> In California, climate and the environment is a giant non-issue
That's ludicrous. CA has been on the forefront of environmentalism since it was a thing. Yosemite, John Muir, eh?
> There is no viable Green Party in the state. Why?
Because they're weirdos. Most of the state is represented by one of the big two. The cities are "blue" but most of the countryside is "red". Ronald Reagan, eh?
And because environmental concerns are being addressed by Newsom well enough. That's part of why he survived the recall election:
> Newsom has outlined ambitious commitments for the state in his electoral platform, espousing 100% renewable energy within the state, expanding public transit efficiency, and zero diesel pollution by 2030, with overarching goals of equity and accountability.
